I Can Remember
by Nathan Bell
Summary: I can remember my dreams, and they frighten me; I am a haunted person, and in the night... He comes for me.


Disclaimer: I claim not to the Harry Potter fandom, as it all belongs to Joanne. K. Rowling. No copyright infringement is wished upon the authoress, and I wish that no offence is derived from it. The situations are totally of my own devising, and are in no way connected with the true world of Harry Potter.

Author's Notes: I'd really like to thank my beta for this, Kathryn, who made me seem the error of my ways in so many things. This is just the first part of I'm not sure how many. Perhaps it will be soon... but then, perhaps not. But in time, maybe. I don't beg of you to review; I note that I hardly ever do so myself. But reviews are nice to read, so if you do take time out of your busy reading schedule, I'd be rather overjoyed. The five songs included in this story are by the Japanese Rock group entitled, Dir en grey (or, in a translation of the German-French-English mixture, Coin in Grey). I claim no right to the original Japanese lyrics, and even though I did translate them into English, I still don't own them.  
  
---  
  
Dying a child  
Child Prey  
Hurry & May  
Nurturing a Wild  
Wild clay  
Bully & Jay  
the reasons why one can't laugh from the heart  
the treasons which one can't take from the heart  
it's a simple reason  
it's a nimble treason  
that's life  
Kiss Me Deadly  
What a knife  
Pass Me Deadly  
Kiss Me Kill Me Love Me  
Kiss Me Kill Me Love Me  
Child Is Burning  
Pass Me Tell Me Move Me  
Pass Me Tell Me Move Me  
Wild Is Turning  
Kiss Me Kill Me Love Me  
Kiss Me Deadly  
Pass Me Tell Me Move Me  
Pass Me Deadly   
  
-Child Prey, Dir en Grey   
  
--- 

It all started inside the darkness. The darkness was so thick he couldn't see, couldn't feel. It closed in around him and suffocated him and strangled him and took his breath away. Tendrils of darkness were upon him, around his neck and around his body and touching him. He was naked beneath them, touched by them as They slid over him in places that no one touched.   
  
He tried to speak but his voice was muffled, his mouth stuffed with tendrils as he opened it. They slid into his mouth and down his throat. He gagged. They tasted like death, ashy as the smell of burnt flesh. Death; death was darkness and it made him shiver and gag, and he tried not to choke on them as They touched him, and covered his body in entirety with their touches.   
  
Wrapped around his teenaged body he tried to struggle. Tighter They snaked around   
  
him, tighter They touched him and slid down his throat, sliding up and down with jerking movements. Then They touched him, and not gently. Not like he wanted it, but deep inside of him he wanted it gently; the tendrils of the darkness were only rough.   
  
They caressed his chest and the taste and the smell and the feel of death overwhelmed his senses, before two breached him at once, painfully all at once. Shoved into him and caused him to rip and bleed. Death overwhelmed him from all sides, and he cried and the tears spread down his cheeks and he struggled and gagged and retched and tensed his muscles.   
  
Tensing only seemed to make the pain worse; he cried out and his eyes flashed open, but all he saw was the darkness that encircled him. He saw nothing but emptiness staring back at him. Hurting him. He let out a whimper and struggled as his humiliation was continued; They made no move top stop.   
  
Tenderly they touched his chest but all he did was cry and weep; tenderly they touched his body while shoving into the tense ring of muscle. He cried out. Then the pain, on his chest. Like he was being cut open. Like his chest was being slit. He could feel the blood pour out in spurts, his heart sending each stream from the slice spreading over his body. The blood running down the inside of his thighs and the back of his throat.   
  
He gagged and clenched his eyes, willing himself away, trying to escape the tendrils of darkness.   
  
---   
  
Harry awoke with a start, his face lined with tears that shone by the moonlight coming in the window. The window had no curtains, and the rest of the room was totally bare; he jerked and shuddered, but now that he was awake he resolved to himself that he would never fall asleep again. Never. Then he ran a hand over his naked body beneath the rough single blanket.   
  
Hardened from the work his Aunt and Uncle had forced him to do; a single scar ran down his chest, from the middle of his torso almost to his navel. He jerked. It had started bleeding again. It wasn't really deep; he had cut himself on a shard of a glass bottle that had ripped through his shirt, and when he had finally managed to get to his bed, without eating any dinner, his shirt was soaked with blood from the wound that kept reopening.   
  
Thankfully, he had brewed some healing potions, and quickly applied them to stop the bleeding and hopefully close the wound over again. He was waiting for tomorrow, or the morning, he thought to himself, as the moon had well passed its zenith, and the dawn was coming from the light that was shining on the horizon. Grabbing some more potion he dabbed it onto the cut and pulled himself back up against the wall and blinked the drying tears from his eyes.   
  
He took a deep breath.   
  
"It's all a dream," he muttered aloud to himself.   
  
Fifteen years old, he leant back against the wall and let his head fall onto his shoulder. He was not going to fall asleep, he told himself; he didn't want to have that dream again. Not then, nor any time in the future. He could still taste the blood in his throat and he could still feel the death that touched him.   
  
He shuddered.   
  
The rest of the night past fitfully. Whenever he was about to fall asleep he jerked himself awake, pinching himself or getting up to walk around. Most of the time he sat at the window, looking out with his legs crossed on the floor. It was a lowset window, and he would read the letter again and again in the moonlight. The Grangers were coming for him tomorrow; he was to spend the rest of the holidays with them.   
  
It was July 28th.   
  
Voldemort would have no way to trace him amongst muggles, so it was the perfect opportunity for him to hide and rest for a bit. Then he'd be off to the Weasleys' a few weeks before the start of term and then he'd be back at Hogwarts once more. Back at home. He yawned.   
  
His eyes gently closed and when he pulled them open again the sun had moved above the horizon. He glanced at his watch; it read 4:31 am. He sighed, thankful that he had not had any dreams, or that he had at least could not remember them. Then he turned to his trunk and began to pack it with his clothing.   
  
The clock ticked around to six am before he could even blink. The Dursleys had absolutely no idea that he was leaving; they hardly ever got up before seven am, and today, when they got up, he wouldn't be here. There would be a short note on the kitchen table and the sheets were folded up. They wouldn't be washed, he noted to himself, and would probably still be stained with his blood when he came back next year.   
  
He sighed.   
  
Then a car pulled up the front, and he grinned to himself, and quietly lugged his trunk down the stairs. When he opened the door Hermione, dressed to kill, hugged him and gave him a kiss on the cheek, before helping him lift the trunk into the car. She did it quickly and proficiently, and they were on their way to her parent's home in another part of London.   
  
Harry had a permanent smile etched into his face, the dream long since forgotten.   
  
The drive to their house went by quickly, and he was soon being shown to his room and told to unpack his clothes. The dream was still on the edges of his mind, but he forgot about it as he started pulling his clothes from his trunk and packing them into the draws. Then he pulled out his wand and put it on the bedside table.   
  
"So," Hermione said. She was sitting on the end of the bed while he put away his clothes in the chest of draws of the guest bedroom. He smiled, concentrating on packing the oversized clothing into the drawers. He dropped a pair of pyjamas and when he came back up from bending down to retrieve them, Hermione's mother had entered the room.   
  
She had a distasteful look on her face. "You poor boy!" she exclaimed. "Hermione," she turned to her daughter. "You're taking him shopping. Today, if possible."   
  
Harry blinked and gulped, meeting Hermione's disdainful look.   
  
He nodded slowly.   
  
---   
  
He surmised that shopping with Hermione wasn't, in the end up, so bad as one might think. He glanced over his purchases, and then down at the clothes that he had decided to change into in a public toilet after selecting them and buying them. She said something about how she couldn't believe what little a fuss her mother was making, but she was mumbling and he really didn't care much.   
  
Black. Totally black. The top was tighter then he would have liked but he had no wish to go back and change it, and the pants were tied with a small leather string. The shoes were black too, he noted; the only thing that wasn't black was his skin, which was looking a paler colour than usual, and his eyes.   
  
"I think your mother will burn these, " he said, and Hermione grinned.   
  
Harry found himself grinning at her for some reason.   
  
---   
  
Sadistic sadistic sadistic awaken the sadist  
Sadistic sadistic sadistic bury the sadist  
Sadistic sadistic sadistic cut the masochist  
Sadistic sadistic let's begin platonically   
  
The yellowing greedy insects,  
Are the ones who sympathize  
Rotten apples in my gastric juices  
Want to try my sexual desire soup?  
Dripping poison, pink maggots  
Soak in the formalin of sexual desire,  
Rotten strawberries inside of there,  
A sour marinade with blood   
  
Filth Hi   
  
We'll see a movie, holding hands, just like I promised  
Saying goodbye in the night, before the strawberries and apples rot  
While the dreams spreads, kissing, just like I promised  
Saying goodbye to you, we'll enjoy the last supper   
  
Filth Hi   
  
Sadistic sadistic sadistic drink the sadist up  
Sadistic sadistic sadistic look at the sadistic horror  
Sadistic awakening goes forth   
  
Come, come all, look see!  
Sadistic sadistic synchronize the retrospective horror   
  
The festival of lust begins,  
The festival of desire commences,  
Sadistic festival out of control  
Rapid human flesh psycho horror  
Orange juice with liver  
Sweet curry with kidney  
Poached fish with pancreas   
  
Lovely lovely; psychotic horror.   
  
-Filth, Dir en grey   
  
---   
  
They pulled him tighter, clutching him in their embrace as They slid over his body and touched his body; he shuddered. The tendrils of darkness slid down his throat and across his body and touched him down there. It was almost impossible for him not to be aroused, him in all of his teenaged glory, all of his hormones and the touch felt good. Pleasurable; it made him sick.   
  
They breached him again, roughly and the pain seemed only to have gotten worse then it had been before. The knife was on his chest again and it pushed into the skin, sliding down the skin, slicing down the skin and the blood began to pour out. Out of his body and onto his body, spreading onto his body and the tendrils that breached him pulled out, and They slid around in the blood before They thrust back in again.   
  
He let out a muffled scream around the tendril of the darkness and struggled in the bonds. His erection had gone and he was limp, and the rest of his body was tense as he tried to escape the tendrils. He struggled and he screamed aloud and he let out a pitiful moan and struggled and bled more. His front was covered in blood and blood was dripping down his thighs and he moved, kicked his legs but the tendrils only curled tighter.   
  
Then, in the distance, he only heard laughter.  
  
---   
  
The moonlight poured through a gap in the curtains when he awoke. He pushed the sheets back and was thankful that only his old pyjama top was covered in blood and that it hadn't soaked through to the sheets. He stood up and pulled the top off, and glared at the cut that was still adorning his chest. Then he reached over and dabbed some more of the potion over it; he wished he could use his wand.   
  
The muggle alarm clock by his bed read four thirty-one in bright letters, and he paced while trying to figure out what to do. He could still taste it, feel it touching him, and he could smell the death and it made his skin itch and quiver and shudder. He stripped off his clothes and wandered into the small bathroom, and he thought of telling Sirius of his dreams.   
  
He stepped into the shower; his muscles were tense and he could feel the blood still spreading from the wound. He felt light headed, but the potion was doing it's job and all he had to worry about then was the blood that was spread around his chest. Spread from his navel up to the base of his neck, and he caught the drips in his hands and tried to not mess up the tiles.   
  
The water was cold at first, but a welcomed cold. It tied him to reality and he watched with a fascination as the blood poured from his chest and it turned pink, as it mixed with the water and slid down the drain. The cold water seemed to chip away at the death that covered him; it was if he could see the death and darkness washing down the drain with the blood.   
  
The warm water kicked in at a welcome time, and the gentle steam that rose pushed the final drops of blood down the drain and away to only God knew where. The heat was comforting, and he quickly pulled down a bar of soap from the rack and began to scrub away at his body. Within minutes he was actually feeling slightly cleaner then before, and stepped under the spray and washed the soap off.   
  
He hoped that he hadn't woken any of the Grangers, and then he scrubbed himself again, concentrating on nether regions. He didn't really know what made him do it but he did; the finger felt good as he washed around the tender region, and then it slipped in. He was surprised at first; he had expected anything down there to hurt, like it did in his dreams. It slid out slowly, and it felt nice.   
  
He shuddered as he thought of the laughter. It echoed in his ears and he stuck his head under the spray, wetting his hair before he stepped back and let the water shut off. He hadn't been too long, for which he was thankful. He hoped that no one would notice his late night shower, and stepped out of the bathroom and quickly dried himself off with a towel.   
  
It was cold, but that was to be expected. He had grown used to the cold recently, ever since the Dursley's had reduced the amount of bedding he was given, and he could probably stand out in the snow with nothing on if he had to. He surmised that it would toughen him up for Voldemort; He was totally dry when he left the bathroom, hanging the towels up on the wall.   
  
He pulled some clothes from his trunk and slid into them. The moonlight was still streaming in the window, and the clock told 4:44 am. He pulled a book from his trunk, not really caring which one it was, and pulled the chair next to the window. Then he let his eyes draw to the handwritten letters that were wizard's books, and began to read.   
  
The clock read six fifty-two am the next time he glanced at it, and he sighed as he glanced over the last page of the book and closed it with a bit of a huff. Then he placed it back into his trunk and got up. He didn't hear the knocking, or the creaking of the door as it opened, but he did hear Hermione's muffled greeting as she stepped into the room.   
  
"Hi," she said, and plopped down on the side of his bed. "Mum was wondering what you'd like for breakfast: Bacon and Eggs? Or Cereal?"   
  
"Bacon and Eggs," he replied, and she smiled and nodded and left the room. Then she stuck her head back into the room. "Oh, and breakfast is at a quarter past seven, if you don't remember from what I told you last night."   
  
Then she was gone.   
  
Then everything stopped, and They returned. The tendrils of darkness beckoned to him, and he clutched at reality and pushed them away.   
  
"You're mine," a voice whispered, a masculine voice, a soft voice.   
  
"Don't forget."   
  
Then his scar burned and everything went dark.  
  
---   
  
Walking with you is lost, back then.  
When we walked, how will I meet you again?   
On the gently sloping hill the snow falls slowly,  
The flower that you love is in your room, now…   
  
The day of the last snow of last year - the promise made firmly  
I remember and it melts and falls from the palm of my hand  
On the gently sloping hill the snow falls slowly,  
The flower that you love is in your room, now…  
While remembering you gazing out at the snow, at my place by the window  
You float along the glass and I remember your final kiss   
  
Laugh - don't cry anymore  
From here I'll watch you, always   
  
On the gently sloping hill the snow falls slowly,  
The flower that you love is in your room, now…  
  
The light goes and dies the lonely town white,  
The colour of the last season that you looked at,   
A tear drops - isn't reality is cruel?  
You saw the colour of the last season   
  
The four seasons and your colour will be gone,  
Snow melts, a flower blooming in a street corner  
The colours you saw melt quietly  
The last snow this year.   
  
On the street corner a flower,  
If I look up into the sky, the last of the   
snow should fall into my hand.   
  
-Ain't Afraid To Die, Dir en grey   
  
---   
  
His eyes opened a moment later, and he shuddered as he remembered the voice. Someone was banging around in the room beneath him, and the intoxicating smell of bacon and eggs bounced from the walls. He quickly looked around. It appeared that he had blacked out, and was still standing in the place that he had been two minutes before. He shook his head and decided it was his nerves.   
  
He sat back down on the bed and took a deep breath, and before he realised it several minutes had passed and it was nearing six minutes past seven. He debated writing a note to Sirius, reaching out to pick up his quill and a note but then he realised that he had absolutely no idea what to say. How could he possibly tell him about those dreams?   
  
Deciding against it, he walked to the door and stepped out into the hallway. Hermione was climbing up the stairs with pensive look upon her face. Then she noticed him and quickly took the next couple of steps towards him.   
  
"Hi again," he said.   
  
She smiled at him, but she wasn't she. She was the darkness and he felt sick   
  
"Breakfast is ready early," said she, "if you want some," she quickly added.   
  
He nodded. "I'm starved," he fibbed.   
  
"Good," she said, "I told Mum to make double for you."   
  
He smiled back at her, but inside his stomach was churning.   
  
The day went fast, July the 30th, Harry had noted. It would be a day until his birthday and he wondered what he would get. He surmised that Sirius would probably send him something, and so would Ron and Hermione might have gotten him something. He didn't really mind if they hadn't, though. He was used to his birthday being missed while staying at the Dursleys for so much of his life.   
  
Hermione gave him a hug and pecked him on the cheek, at which he blushed, and then the two of them had parted ways in the hall and had gone into their separate bedrooms. He wrote a letter to Sirius, but he didn't say anything of the dreams. He couldn't decide what to write. Then he wrote a reply to Ron's letter, but after a while he couldn't stand it any more and plucking up his courage he prepared to face the dream. He stripped down, locked the door and wrapped a towel around his chest, even though the cut was almost fully healed.   
  
Then he closed his eyes.   
  
---  
  
The dream started off differently. He was standing in a room, the walls were made of stone and the lamps flickered. There was a bed, swathed in green, a desk, a chair and a few other assorted objects. A person opened the door, and the hand poked out of the darkness.   
  
He looked around and noticed that he was sitting on the edge of the bed, and that the person who had stepped into the room looked familiar. The person turned to him and he took a deep breath and tried to calm himself. Deep green eyes, not emerald, more like jade, and the colour of the bed that he sat upon, stared at him from a milieu of pale white skin. He looked like a corpse.   
  
"Why hello," he muttered, and stepped across the room, and he stopped in front of Harry's face and stared directly at him, almost leeringly. Then he sat on the bed next to him, and that sparkle in his eyes seemed to grow.   
  
Harry shivered.   
  
Then hand that was as pale a corpse slid across his thigh. He wasn't older by much, a few days, and Harry shivered and winced away from the hand. He was naked once more, and the hand travelled up and gently caressed him. He tried to hold back, tried not to retch and tried to get away from the hand that clutched him. It squeezed him tightly, painfully.   
  
He whimpered.   
  
"That hurt?" the boy asked, softly, his jade-green eyes flashing.   
  
Harry shook his head and the boy squeezed harder, and the pain flashed as his nails dug into him.   
  
"Liar," he muttered softly. "You'll pay," he warned softly, "I don't like liars."   
  
Then his head dipped down and gently licked it's way up Harry's thigh. Then the hand   
  
stopped squeezing so tightly and the tongue that was forked in a serpentine way snaked out and licked the droplet of dew away from the head of his shaft. He moaned, and couldn't help himself and the mouth closed over the head.   
  
He wouldn't give in.   
  
Then the door slammed open and the darkness seeped in, and the boy laughed.   
  
"Tom!" he screamed, "Don't do it!"   
  
Tom only laughed.   
  
"You're mine," he whispered, tauntingly, and then the darkness blotted him away.   
  
---   
  
He awoke when the sun was steadily climbing, and the clock read seven twenty-one. He jumped from the bed and was thankful that the cut had finally started healing properly. He could remember the dream from the night before but he pushed it away, not thinking about it, and telling himself that he would never think about it again. He would not say a word, and he wouldn't remember them at all.   
  
He heard a sound downstairs and his eyes were drawn to the calendar. It was the final day of the month of July, and, he realized, his birthday. Flinging away all thoughts about the dreams, along with the covers of the bed, he pulled on a different set of clothes and looked around. But he was disappointed: there were no owls in the room. Then he sighed and told himself that it was inevitable that they'd forget about him after a while.   
  
There were muffled noises as he stepped out into the hallway. The noise that had been coming from the floor below had stopped and it felt like everyone was waiting for him, and it was at that moment that he realised he had missed breakfast. He was surprised that Hermione hadn't come to awaken him. He sighed and quickly took the stairs two at a time, and then came to a dead stop as he looked out on the room. Hermione and her parents were watching him, and so was Sirius.   
  
"Sirius!" he screamed, and then flung himself on then taller, now filled out man. He no longer looked as ragged as he had before, and his hair had grown long enough so that it reached his shoulders and was tied back into a pony tail.   
  
"Hello Harry," he said softly, returning the embrace for a few moments before they broke away.   
  
"Why are you here?" Harry asked softly, "I didn't expect to see you so soon!"   
  
Sirius smiled. "I'll tell you later," he said.   
  
Harry nodded.   
  
Then he turned and gasped. Streamers and balloons were strung all over the place, and their kitchen table was littered with presents, perhaps as many as Dudley usually got on each of his repugnant birthdays. Harry felt his face turn red, and glanced around nervously. He hadn't really expected something like this.   
  
"Thank you," he muttered softly, and then he hid his blush and gave Sirius another hug. They stepped apart a few moments later, and then his embarrassment was forgotten as they wandered over to the table at a leisurely pace.   
  
"When-"   
  
"The Weasleys'll be here later," Hermione cut him off, "you can open them before that, of course," she added.   
  
The first present purred when he picked it up, and he quickly surmised that it was from Hagrid. Opening the wrapping he was greeted with a small oblong cage, taller more then wider, inside of which was a strange animal that looked like a cross between a cat and a bird. It was smaller than an owl, and had purple feathers and a cat-like tail with pointed cat's ears. It looked very strange.   
  
He read the note: "Dear Harry," aloud, "I bred him myself!"   
  
Hermione went green. "I don't want to know…" she muttered softly.   
  
Sirius grinned at her. "I hope you like him, and Dumbledore gives you permission to bring him back to school with you. Hagrid."   
  
Harry smiled and rubbed the head of the bird through the bars of the cage, and the bird purred loudly, or rather tweeted and purred loudly at exactly the same time. It was a strange noise, but surprisingly enough, quite calming. Around twenty minutes later there were only two boxes left over; Hermione's Mum was off doing something in the kitchen, and her Dad was busy petting the bird that was curled up on his knee. He assumed that one of the presents was from Hermione, and he watched her eyes fall onto one of the presents so he picked that one. He wanted to wait until last to open Sirius'.   
  
"Hermione!" he gasped, because inside the case was a small sphere. It was beautiful, he noted to himself, and was made out of some type of glass. Inside floated a gentle mist, and, occasionally, images would fly past and swirl in and out. He looked up at her with a smile upon his face and quickly stepped across the room to give her a hug.   
  
"It's like a remembrall," she explained, after she had let him go and he returned to sit next to Sirius. "But it shows an image of what you've forgotten."   
  
"Thank you," he said, feeling slightly overwhelmed and not a little bit embarrassed.   
  
She blushed and Harry smiled, and then reached out to the final present.   
  
It was from Sirius. He smiled in anticipation, gently opened it and then took a deep breath. There, inside of the package, was a small mirror about the size of his hand, though he could see his reflection in it he could see his hand as well. Harry turned to Sirius.   
  
"It shows the truth," Sirius said softly, "it always shows the truth."  
  
---   
  
I loved too much; it's all I did.  
But I'm getting tired; is someone in my arms?   
  
I cannot love any more; hatred wells up inside me.  
I want to break everything down; do you like my selfishness?   
  
I asked for more, more then words can say.  
I want just your body.   
  
A clown performs in front of a mirror,  
Softly comes to me and says,  
Is it I or is it she who makes you suffer?  
I whisper alone.   
  
Before I noticed, I'd hurt you  
We don't understand each other, but I'm with you.   
  
A clown performs in front of a mirror,  
Softly comes to me and says,  
Is it I or is it she who makes you suffer?  
I whisper alone.   
  
The end is like this, so much pain I can't feel  
You scream with laughter, and stare at the red razor.   
  
-Raison d'Être, Dir en grey  
  
---   
  
"Hello, love," Tom said and caressed his face.   
  
He didn't jerk back from the touch, not now; it hurt too much to be away from him even though he hated the man. The boy who wasn't a man but pretended to be one. The snake. He couldn't remember his life, except for the pain. The pain was visible, but everything else was blurry, like watching through fogged up glass; the only thing that wasn't blurry was the pain, the memory of the pain.   
  
The hurt.   
  
"Happy Birthday love," Tom said, and then he stuck his tongue in his ear and Harry shuddered. That snake-like tongue seemed to touch things inside of him, and he felt his groin rising to the occasion and Tom slid down to his knees. Down to the cold stone floor and his hands fingered the band of the pants and pulled them down. Then they were at his ankles and that tongue slid across his head.   
  
He pulled the skin back and let the pointed ends flick into the hole and he tried to hold himself back and not buck his hips. He tried not to moan but he didn't succeed, and the smile on Tom's face grew wider and he slid his mouth up and down the shaft. From the tip to the bottom, licking and sucking and kisses and rubbing. Then he swallowed the whole thing Harry couldn't do anything but moan.   
  
Completion was close, with that forked tongue running up and down him and those fingers touching him in those places. Those places that only Tom seemed to know about, which he would touch and make him see stars. He moaned and arched his back and thrust his hips up and Tom didn't stop him. His dick was all the way down Tom's throat and then he came with a rush.   
  
Everything was still blurry, but all he could remember was Tom, and that Tom loved him.   
  
So much.


End file.
